Webster offers business certificate for arts students
Also partners with BJC on MBA program
Webster University’s School of Business and Technology is offering a unique new certificate program for music and photography students. The program is designed to help Webster’s fine arts and communications students acquire basic business skills that will enable them to pursue careers in their chosen fields. It will eventually be expanded to include Webster students in all academic fields.
“Our goal is to give students practical, real-world knowledge and experience,” said Benjamin Ola. Akande, dean of the School of Business and Technology. “This Certificate of Entrepreneurship program will help students succeed as business people, in whatever profession they pursue.”
The cross-curriculum, six-course, 16-hour program teaches students basic business skills, including marketing, finance, accounting, human resources and organizational behavior. Courses are tailored to address specific challenges students are likely to face in such areas as music marketing, financial management, small business management and arts management.
“Each student also creates his or her own business plan as part of the certificate program,” explained Barrett Baebler, the business professor who helped organize the program. “Upon graduation, they’ll be able to put those plans to work, giving them a head start on success.”
The program grew out of concerns that students expressed about being ill-prepared for the business side of their lives after school.
“Many music and photography students were already taking business courses because they recognized the need for those skills,” said Akande. “Now, we have organized the resources of the business school to ensure that they are prepared to succeed in traditional entrepreneurial fields and to take their skills in new directions.”
In an initial survey of students in Webster’s School of Communications and its Music Department, 62 percent of students expressed interest in signing up for the certificate program. Akande and Baebler are already planning to expand the program for more students and additional curricular areas in the coming year.
“Students and their parents want to get the most out of their education,” said Akande. “Entrepreneurial programs like this one will help them deal with post-graduate realities.”
BJC, Webster offer MBA program
Earlier this year, 50 doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals at BJC Healthcare began exchanging their stethoscopes for calculators one night each week. They are the first students enrolled in an innovative new MBA program that was created through a partnership between BJC Healthcare and Webster University School of Business and Technology.
The new program addresses a need among hospital employees who had expressed interest in pursuing a master in business administration degree, but found it difficult to juggle an academic program with work and family obligations.
“We had anticipated filling one program with 25 students, but the response to this onsite MBA was so overwhelming that we expanded to two programs,” said Gary Stocker, program manager for BJC’s Center for LifeLong Learning.
“Health care is one of our largest and fastest-growing industries,” said Akande. “By finding new ways to help these professionals expand their business knowledge and skills, we are benefiting the entire community.”
Classes are held one night per week for four hours on the BJC mid-town campus. BJC provides the room and supporting materials, while Webster University provides the curriculum and the instructors. Depending on the employee’s educational background, the course of study can be as few as nine terms or as many as 14, including prerequisites, core courses and electives.
The immediate demand for the program has already led the two institutions to plan for another program to start in late 2006.
The School of Business and Technology has an enrollment of 15,000 students, supported by 2,300 faculty worldwide. It awards more masters degrees to minority candidates worldwide than any other university. For more information, visit www.webster.edu
